Dr. King’s ‘Two Americas’ Truer Now than Ever

You may think you know about Martin Luther King, Jr., but there is much about the man and his message we have conveniently forgotten. He was a prophet, like Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah of old, calling kings and plutocrats to account — speaking truth to power.

King was only 39 when he was murdered in Memphis 45 years ago, on April 4th, 1968. The 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery were behind him. So was the successful passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. In the last year of his life, as he moved toward Memphis and his death, he announced what he called the Poor People’s Campaign, a “multi-racial army” that would come to Washington, build an encampment and demand from Congress an “Economic Bill of Rights” for all Americans — black, white, or brown. He had long known that the fight for racial equality could not be separated from the need for economic equity — fairness for all, including working people and the poor.

Martin Luther King, Jr., had more than a dream — he envisioned what America could be, if only it lived up to its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for each and every citizen. That’s what we have conveniently forgotten as the years have passed and his reality has slowly been shrouded in the marble monuments of sainthood.

“There are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. And in a sense this America is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and dignity for their spirits…

“…Tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infected vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”

Breathtakingly prescient words as we look around us at a society where the chasm between the super-rich and poor is wider and deeper than ever. According to a Department of Housing and Urban Development press release, “On a single night last January, 633,782 people were homeless in the United States.” The Institute for Policy Studies’ online weekly “Too Much” notes that single-room-occupancy shelter rates run about $558 per month and quotes analyst Paul Buchheit, who says that at that rate, “Any one of America’s ten richest collected enough in 2012 income to pay an entire year’s rent for all of America’s homeless.”

But why rent when you can buy? “Too Much” also reports that the widow of recently deceased financier Martin Zweig “amid a Manhattan luxury boom” has placed their apartment at the top of the posh Pierre Hotel on the market for $125 million: “A sale at that price would set a new New York record for a luxury personal residence, more than $30 million over the current real estate high marks.”

Meanwhile, a new briefing paper from the advocacy group National Employment Law Project (NELP) finds there are 27 million unemployed or underemployed workers in the U.S. labor force, including “not only the unemployed counted by official jobs reports, but also the eight million part-time workers who would rather be working full-time and the 6.8 million discouraged workers who want to work but who have stopped looking altogether.” Five years after the financial meltdown, “the average duration of unemployment remains at least twice that of any other recession since the 1950s.”

And if you think austerity’s a good idea, NELP estimates that, “Taken together, the ‘sequester’ and other budget-cutting policies will likely slow GDP this year by 2.1 percentage points, costing the U.S. economy over 2.4 million jobs.”

Walmart’s one of those companies laying people off, but according to the website Business Insider, the mega-chain’s CEO Michael Duke gets paid 1,034 times more than his average worker. Matter of fact, “In the past 30 years, compensation for chief executives in America has increased 127 times faster than the average worker’s salary.”

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Most Americans think of Martin Luther King, Jr. as only a leader for racial equality and civil rights. But in the final years of his wrongfully-shortened life (a criminal tragedy and bitter loss for us all!), Martin Luther King realized that the U.S. political and economic system required complete and fundamental changes if social, political, and economic justice and humanity were to be achieved. Martin Luther King was beginning to challenge not just racism and inequality, but also The War, the military-industrial complex, capitalism, and imperialism. These are still our problems today — and in many ways we are even worse off now.

Terry Hildebrand

I am in full agreement with you. Dr. King had immense courage – something which very few of us have these days. The criminals responsible for his death have never really been held accountable. The government’s claim that a racist named James Earl Ray was responsible was never very credible even in 1968. This is one of those “big lies” that few dare to challenge in public.

In 1999, the family of Dr. King brought a wrongful death civil suit against Loyd Jowers and the various government agencies (FBI, military intelligence, Memphis Police) who successfully conspired to silence Dr. King. The trial lasted almost two weeks and had almost 70 people testifying, and there was virtually no coverage of this event by our mainstream news media! The jury took little time to find in the favor the King family; the evidence was so strong and overwhelmingly convincing.

I strongly recommend that readers of this commentary investigate these facts for themselves. The transcript of the trial is available in book form as The 13th Juror and the attorney representing the King family, William Pepper, also wrote a book, An Act of State, about the investigation and civil trial.

I believe Mr. Moyers was the press secretary for Lyndon Johnson, then presiding over t he country, at the time of Dr. King’s death. It is highly likely that Johnson was aware of what was coming down, especially as close as he was to J. Edgar Hoover.

Fran

Mr. Moyers…I support your programming wholeheartedly…this episode completely ignored gender issues related to gender/race inequality. Your panel was made of only men and in 2013 when women’s autonomy is being eradicated, please do not ignore women in your panels on civil rights…gender and racial equality equal social and political justice…MLK lived in a time of sexism and his words today need to be applied to all human rights…I did not see this being applied to women…

Anonymous

Not, definitely not two Americas — just two acknowledged Americas. There’s the rich America, the middle class America and the poor America, each distinct, each pitted against each other.

Anonymous

My American Fathers might have been white men, but with every new page of history I am learning that my Godmothers were people of color. How many times they have rescued America from moments when we needed them most.

Michele Hogan

It seems that Dr. King saw the real divide – between rich and poor. But now we phrase that divide as between black and white, I think because the rich and powerful hope that we will believe the downside of the equation affects only 12% of the population – those with the darkest skin – instead of realizing that it affects 70% or more – everyone of every shade who is poorer and poorer with every passing year. If we saw the divide as being between rich and poor rather than black and white, we would have the numbers to change the situation in our favor.